Where Have I Been or Where I Have Been (Whatever)

Yeah, I guess this blogging thing has somewhat slipped by the wayside. Never fear, loyal readers. I'm sure at some point I'll get a second wind/new lease on life regarding writing things that I never know if anyone ever reads, anyway.

Life's bumping along, it's just my creative juices that have apparently dried up!

So, what have I been up to, then?

Let's see. Trying to get organized for the fall/winter months, for one. You know, exciting chores like swapping clothes out from closet to closet (out with the fall/winter ones). Starting to think about what the heck I'm going to do about holiday greetings this year. Part of me is not terribly into it this year. Ok, more than just part of me. It's so much work and for so little return (in general, folks seem to be dropping this whole holiday greeting tradition).

After a long hiatus, we're back to getting our weekly produce box. This means I'm once again having to come up with creative ways to eat various items that normally I'd never buy. Actually, this week, I got lucky as we received many things I like/have recipes for. Such as, kale, romaine lettuce, apples, roma tomatoes and cucumbers. We also got a passel of beets. Mr. B's on point for those, though.

Last night, we mad maple-glazed chicken (cutlets) with apple-Brussels sprouts slaw. We heated up some left-over sweet potato cheddar grits for an all-around exceptionally harvest-y fall dinner. Tonight, I'm gonna try my hand at making apple kuchen for dessert. Later in the week, a white-bean and kale soup with smoked sausage is on tap.

One thing I LOVE about fall. The return to robust (yet healthy) eating and all the yummy aromas that waft out of the kitchen throughout the weekend days.

I saw "Billy Elliot" (the Broadway musical) here in Durham a few nights ago. What an enjoyable evening (with my SIL Shannon; we bought the season tickets together). I was so awed by the sheer talent of the young man who danced the lead (although there are actually FIVE different boys playing Billy since they can only dance in two performances per week; you know, all those child labor laws!)

I'm proud to report that I have read 53 books (so far) this year (not too much longer to go for 2010 but I'll probably manage to crank out a few more in six weeks or so). You know what THIS means, an extra long Blog series of my book reviews.

We're supposed to get a hard freeze tonight. I really feel as though we missed out on two seasons this year. We seemed to go directly from butt-ass cold weather in February/March to hot humid summer (ok, maybe we had three weeks of spring). Now, we've headed pretty much from the hot humid summer (with record making days) to COLD. What happened to those lovely 65-70 degree days and 40 degree nights?

And tonight (early tomorrow), the clocks go back one hour. This means it'll be dark by 4:30 or so tomorrow and darker yet in the mornings (hard enough to get out of bed when it's so chilly).

Sigh. Gotta remember all of those good smells in the kitchen, though. And, the return to drinking good red wine. I'm totally burned out on Pinot Grigio.

Oh, I got an utterly fantastic early b-day gift from my mom and dad in-law. One of those Keurig coffee machines. I'm having SO MUCH fun with it. The variety of K-Cups available is mind blowing. I went into Bed Bath and Beyond to get a drawer-thingie to put under the machine to hold some of the K-Cups. Almost one entire wall was dedicated to all the K-Cups. I couldn't resist; even though I'd ordered some from Keurig (BTGTF + free shipping), I had to indulge in picking up a box of Holiday Selections from BB&B. Spiced Eggnog, Gingerbread, Golden French Toast and Holiday Blend. The cool thing about this is I can have my foo-foo coffee and Mr. B can drink his Kona or Extra Bold or whatever to his heart's content!

Well, that's about it for now. All's fine here. Maybe next week, I'll think of some really interesting thing to blog about.

Mrs. B